Week 10: Points of View

This week was very quiet, but Stephen and I took this chance to meet over Zoom and discuss our shared presentation for the History Department’s internship showcase - a virtual event that will provide students with a platform to share their summer internship experiences. Stephen and I are lucky as we will be presenting together, which means that, although for our presentation we are allocated double the time than the individual students (15 minutes total), we will get a chance to take breaks from speaking and catch our breaths. Instead of splitting the presentation by sections, e.g. skills, challenges, etc., we decided that each of us will contribute a few words to each section because, even though we participated in the same program, our experiences and perspectives differ. We finished by scheduling another meeting a week before the event takes place to rehearse and give feedback on each other’s delivery. 

I was hoping to receive a few tutoring requests this week as the first draft of the final research paper is due this Sunday. Unfortunately, I did not receive any so far, but I have sent an email to all students in the class reminding them about my availability, so hopefully it will encourage them to reach out next week. 

Stephen and I had also discussed student hesitancy to reach out. We have shared the ways we have introduced ourselves and indicated our availability. I found out that Stephen received less requests even though he had been sending weekly emails inviting students to reach out to him. That conversation made me think of why and when, as a student in Dr. Amanda Snyder’s classes, I contacted peer tutors and why and when I didn’t. I remembered that, if my draft was ready on Thursday and the paper was due on Sunday, I felt bad sending it to our peer tutor on such a short notice. However, now as a peer tutor myself, I would rather receive a late request that I would have to politely decline than not to receive any. As a student I also tried to properly format my draft before sending it to the peer tutor, which took time and which eventually I had to do all over again after implementing the peer tutor’s suggestions. Perhaps, on or both of these prevent current students from using my help. 

I am submitting this week’s blog post late because I have, unexpectedly for me, been selected to the final round of a really exciting internship program and had to quickly complete the next steps of the process. This internship is supposed to take place during the Fall semester. Although nothing is finalized yet, I am absolutely certain that this internship made my resume more competitive than it used to be and hence helped me make it to the final round.